Finding our way to Zion

Sunday morning, we made the short drive up to Zion National Park from Hurricane, UT (why is there a town named “Hurricane” in Utah??). When we neared the park, the signs warned that the parking lots at the park were full, and suggested using the free shuttle to reach the park. So we pulled into the first park-and-ride lot we saw and caught the shuttle. It turns out that we had selected to lot furthest from the Visitor Center, and it took about 15 minutes to travel through town to the park entrance.

Once we made it into the park, we caught the park bus for the ride up into Zion Canyon. This canyon was explored by the Mormon pioneers, and they left their legacy in the names the chose for this remarkable place. There are places like the Court of the Patriarchs, which offers views of rock formations named Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, or the formation named Angel’s Landing.

We attended a ranger talk about the geology of Zion, where we learned that the Navajo Sandstone that makes up the spectacular sheer cliffs of the canyon represents an ancient desert of sand dunes that may have been as much as 3,000 feet (1,000 meters) deep! This desert was later submerged under a sea, which provided the minerals that bonded the sand together into the sandstone layer we see today. The most remarkable thing about this sandstone is the source of all that sand. It had started out at the rocks of the Appalachian Mountains, back east. These mountains were once taller than the Himalayas, but were eroded down by rivers running to the west. The sediment collected north of what is now Utah, and prevailing winds drifted it into dunes over what is now the Colorado Plateau. It was amazing to look at all that rock and realize that it had once towered over what is now the East Coast.

The sheer walls of the canyon were gorgeous in their colors and staggering in their heights (nearly 3,000 feet in some places). We saw a couple of climbers working their way up one sheer cliff, which had to be hot work with the hot summer sun reflecting of the rock face. Another feature here are the seep springs at the bottom of the sandstone layer. The sandstone is porous, and the water that falls on the mesa tops soaks in and filters through this layer. At the bottom of the sandstone is a layer of much less permeable stone, and when the water reaches it, it moves laterally, seeping out of the canyon walls at this boundary between layers. At one point, called Weeping Rock, the water falls from the cliff face like a rainfall, fostering a vibrant green hanging garden that was quite remarkable to see.

Eventually, we took the bus back to the visitor’s center at the mouth of the canyon, and headed to the car. We then drove past the canyon and through the park from west to east, passing through a mile long tunnel that was bored through the mountain in the 1920’s. Along the way, there were many spectacular views of the sandstone cliffs and the slipstone formations as we climbed higher on the plateau. Soon we left the park, and continued toward our next destination, Bryce Canyon.

Bryce Canyon

After leaving Zion National Park, we headed further east to Bryce Canyon National Park. This park is higher on the plateau, with the lowest layers of rock here at about the same level as the top layers of rock at Zion. Here, the forces of erosion had formed Hoodoos, or columns of rock with fanciful and interesting shapes. These shapes are the result of the differences in hardness between the rock layers, which allows some layers to erode faster than others. It was evening by the time we reached the park, but the low angle evening light only seemed to enhance the colors of the rock formations, providing some absolutely breathtaking scenery. At the far end of the park road, the elevation is well over 9,000 feet above sea level, and it was getting pretty chilly, so we didn’t linger long before starting back down towards the park entrance, stopping at the pullouts along the way to admire the views.

We also encountered our first wildlife induced traffic jams of the trip. The first was about halfway down, when a group of cars stopped in the middle of the road to admire a pair of pronghorn antelope that were grazing in a meadow along the roadside. Then, as we neared the park entrance, a group of mule deer were grazing near the road. The group included a pair of fawns, young enough to still have their spots. Again, the traffic came to a complete standstill to admire the animals.

The timing of our visit was fortunate as well. Until only a few days earlier, the road through the park was closed about halfway through the park, because of a fire started by a lightning strike. Apparently, the fire was still burning somewhere in the park, though we didn’t see any evidence of smoke or signs that the fire was still burning. However, we did drive through the area that had burned, with blackened trees lining the roadway on both sides for about two miles through the middle of the park. Thankfully, the fire had moved away from the main parts of the park and we were able to enjoy all the terrific views.

Salt Lake City

After leaving Bryce Canyon, we headed back towards I-15, which would take us north to Salt Lake City. By the time we reached the highway and found a hotel, it was very late. Consequently, it was later than we planned starting north the next morning.

We arrived in Salt Lake City early in the afternoon on Monday, found a public parking lot in the heart of the city and made our way to Temple Square. Build around the Mormon Temple, this is the Mormon equivalent to St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican. We were fortunate enough to arrive just in time to listen to an organ recital in the Tabernacle (home of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir). The organ has 11,623 pipes, and it was a truly memorable experience to hear it played live and in person.

After the recital, we took a tour of Temple Square, which included a lot of history of the Mormon people and their religion and ended with a very brief and very low pressure pitch offering information about their religion. Everyone we dealt with in and around Temple Square were extremely polite and pleasant, and it was interesting to visit some places that were important sites in a couple of novels I’ve read recently.

After we finished our visit to the Temple area, we had dinner in a nearby restaurant to celebrate my MIL’s birthday, before heading out to visit the Antelope Island State Park, located on an island in the Great Salt Lake. This gave our daughters a chance to wade in the highly saline waters of this second saltiest body of water in the world (only the Dead Sea is saltier). We watched the sun set over the lake before making our way to a hotel for the night.